With advances in non-volatile memory technology, a key parameter is the cost of memory. Efficient use of memory in a storage system can help increase the amount of usable storage, thus reducing the effective price per gigabyte of storage. Prior storage systems include a computer server having hardware and software to analyze the data prior to be stored in a storage media, and then to either store the data in the storage media or store a reference to the data in memory of the computer server. In these storage systems, the computer server is an integral part of the storage system, with the analysis performed at a system level on the computer server, and information, such as signatures and references to the data, saved at a system level on the computer server. The storage media in these storage systems, such as solid-state storage drives (or solid-state drives) (SSDs) or hard drive devices (or hard disk drives) (HDD), have no analytical capability or intelligence to enable such analysis.